I grew up where the acorns were as big as your fist and the crawfish made towers in every yard. Louisiana was full of voodoo and jazz and Cajun twang. The summers curdled the mud dry and scorched the grass black but the world was so damn big there. When we were younger, my brother and I would run around that 13-acre yard from sun up to sun down. Reed and I would come in with our feet caked in mud and grass, wearing the kind of smiles that only came from hours of laughter. My parents would come home from work, make dinner, and the four of us would sit around a crescent-moon, granite table and eat. When I was 8 years old, Natalie was born. My sweet, bird-boned sister. Reed and I rushed to the hospital after school and I got to hold her first. I looked down at that bundle of blankets and swore to protect her with all my tiny, 8-year-old might. Now the five of us sat at that crescent-moon table, with Nat smack-dab in the middle, soaking up all of our adoring captivation. That child had the sweetest face, fat cheeks (with a dimple on one side), and big brown eyes and we made sure that she never stopped laughing. Not to say that our life was incomplete before, but… well, yeah I guess it was. Eventually, we moved to Georgia and the years passed by, but the one thing that hasn’t changed (and probably never will) is that Nat is the light of my life.